Picture of the day

[XRCD011]

 

[Dark Alley Dan]

Thx for that, good read.
Hauling your arse over the main wing spar to get to the rear was not known to me.

Imagine this.

Pitch black, -40C, you're in thick, restrictive leather and woolies. Can't get out the nose hatch. Plane is in a 45% bank to port, spiraling down to Holland. Starboard inner tank is on fire. Skipper said "GO" so you're trying to climb over that spar to get to the door on the rear starboard side. You were "coned" thirty seconds before so your night vision is pooched. Not much time to get out, even less if you hope to have your chute deploy properly.

I wonder how many of the 51,000+ young men we lost had that as their last experience on Earth. Brings a tear to my eye to think of it. What a hell of a thing to ask men to do.

There may be a third - FM104 is under restoration to flying status at what was Pat Bay and now is Victoria International Airport:

Back in the day:

...and now:

They say she'll fly in her postwar SAR colours. And there's always NX611 "Just Jane" at East Kirkby, who is en route to becoming flyable. Update here: https://warbirdsnews.com/warbird-restorations/lancaster-nx611-just-jane-restoration-update-180.html

The Nanton Lanc (FM159) now does engine runs. If you get a chance to see thatm you should. Four Merlins at full song fifty feet away will give you a stiffyyou could build a garage with. I'm told a couple million would make her airworthy again. If I had the money, we'd be working ont hat now.

That gives us two flying, two on the way, and a possible fifth. If, by some amazing conglomeration of miracles, they were ever anywhere in the air at the same time, I would do anything - anything - to be there to witness that.

 

[I Dont Care About You]

Imagine this.

Pitch black, -40C, you're in thick, restrictive leather and woolies. Can't get out the nose hatch. Plane is in a 45% bank to port, spiraling down to Holland. Starboard inner tank is on fire. Skipper said "GO" so you're trying to climb over that spar to get to the door on the rear starboard side. You were "coned" thirty seconds before so your night vision is pooched. Not much time to get out, even less if you hope to have your chute deploy properly.

I wonder how many of the 51,000+ young men we lost had that as their last experience on Earth. Brings a tear to my eye to think of it. What a hell of a thing to ask men to do.

Lots of the time men got stuck inside the fuselage, trapped by the g-forces of a spinning aircraft, they would just have to wait to die, knowing it was coming. How long does it take to spin down from 30,000 ft? That'd suck.

 

[55recce]

FM104 is under active restoration at the BC Aviation Museum at the Victoria International Airport. Come and take a look https://www.bcam.net/

There are many years of work ahead. We are currently replacing a lot of metal that was cut away when it was pylon mounted or corroded away after many years outside. We are missing a lot of parts such as a tail wheel fork and most of the cockpit fittings. Let us know if you can help!

 

[Dark Alley Dan]

FM104 is under active restoration at the BC Aviation Museum at the Victoria International Airport. Come and take a look https://www.bcam.net/

There are many years of work ahead. We are currently replacing a lot of metal that was cut away when it was pylon mounted or corroded away after many years outside. We are missing a lot of parts such as a tail wheel fork and most of the cockpit fittings. Let us know if you can help!

HUGE job, mate, but I look forward to living long enough to watch her fly out of YYJ. Good luck on the parts hunt. Somewhere in a shed in southern Alberta, such things must stll be propping up chicken coops and water troughs.

 

[bush1]

FM104 is under active restoration at the BC Aviation Museum at the Victoria International Airport. Come and take a look https://www.bcam.net/

There are many years of work ahead. We are currently replacing a lot of metal that was cut away when it was pylon mounted or corroded away after many years outside. We are missing a lot of parts such as a tail wheel fork and most of the cockpit fittings. Let us know if you can help!

Good stuff and I’m sure you’re cadre of volunteers will increase as more find out what your doing. I got a bit involved in the Hanley Page Halifax that was restored in Trenton years back. I knew most of the guys that worked on that restoration and their work ethic’s and dedication to get it done was very noticeable. Two WWII vets were also on the restoration crew, Lloyd Wright was a Halifax pilot in the war and Bev Renshaw was in the RCN on a Corvette. These two guys, as well as the rest of the crew showed up early enough to donn coveralls and be ready to work at 8am. That’s dedication. Bev even bought a metal lathe so he could practice at home. “Didn’t want to waste any work time” he would say. Myself and 2 others did the fabric work on the ailerons. The longest ailerons I’ve ever seen.

As more people notice, you’ll be quite surprised what transpires. We took an old friend there at the beginning and he saw the state of the huge H assemblies that form the main undercarriage and he said he could fab them up no problem if he had the drawings. Well, they gave him the drawings and he reproduced a set that fit the airframe and axles perfectly. It’s quite amazing what talent lurks by…

Here is a few pics of the Halifax;

 

[fingers284]

Imagine this.





That gives us two flying, two on the way, and a possible fifth. If, by some amazing conglomeration of miracles, they were ever anywhere in the air at the same time, I would do anything - anything - to be there to witness that.

Isnt that ironic how we can pine for just a chance to see that up close just one time...and back in their hay day, millions of folks looked to the skies when hundreds of these things were either comming or going from their cities and saying "when will this insanity end".

 

[bdft]

Lots of the time men got stuck inside the fuselage, trapped by the g-forces of a spinning aircraft, they would just have to wait to die, knowing it was coming. How long does it take to spin down from 30,000 ft? That'd suck.

Assuming slightly less than terminal velocity at 100 mph, 3.34 minutes. Less if it's in a power dive. Not much time to do anything at all.

 

[Dark Alley Dan]

[/B]

Isnt that ironic how we can pine for just a chance to see that up close just one time...and back in their hay day, millions of folks looked to the skies when hundreds of these things were either comming or going from their cities and saying "when will this insanity end".

Very true, mate. When they were in service, England sent them out every night safe in the knowledge many of them weren't coming back. Meanwhile,in mainland Europe, people would hear them go over and think "Please, God, not here, not tonight." There are objects of profound sadness, harbingers of terrible things for everyone involved. They evoke substantial strong emotions in me.

Not sure if Harris was a visionary or a war criminal. There's evidence supporting both viewpoints. Not gonna argue that here. But I see a Lanc (or a Halifax or a Wellington) and they kinda grab me. The thought of seeing a number of them in flight puts a lump in my throat. Maybe that's a small appreciation for what folks felt back in the day.

 

[I Dont Care About You]

Assuming slightly less than terminal velocity at 100 mph, 3.34 minutes. Less if it's in a power dive. Not much time to do anything at all.

3 1/2 minutes is loads of time to contemplate your end.

 

[blazinbilly]

My uncle was a bomber pilot in WW2, he loved the Lancasters not so much the others. Flew over 30 missions with 2 nervous landings, one with a 500lber stuck in the bombay doors and one with no hydrolics causing him to belly land . Both times away from the main runway so as not to mess them up. Have his log book and uniform.

 

[Dark Alley Dan]

214 Squadron (code "BU") operated the B-17 as a carrier for ABC ("Airborne Cigar") . This from Wikipedia:

Airborne Cigar, or ABC for short, was a World War II electronic countermeasure (ECM) system developed by the Telecommunications Research Establishment (TRE) to jam Luftwaffe ground-to-air radios operating in the very high frequency (VHF) band. When used properly, the system made enemy night fighter communications almost impossible. The Germans referred to ABC as "dudelsack", German for bagpipes, in reference to the warbling sound. The system consisted of a wide-band receiver and three tunable transmitters of about 50 W output. The German-speaking Special Duties Operators (SDOs) would listen to signals in the band to determine which frequencies were being used by ground controllers. When one was found, one of the transmitters would be turned to that frequency and began broadcasting noise. ABC was operated primarily by No. 101 Squadron RAF, part of the specialist No. 100 Group RAF. As the system was only useful over a range of about 50 miles (80 km), their Lancasters were spread out through the bomber stream. Because ABC was used on almost all missions, 101 suffered among the highest losses of the war.

To counteract ABC, the Germans introduced new frequency bands. These were soon discovered and jammed as well. Other attempts, like false ground controllers, using women to send the signals and other methods all had little effect and no effective countermeasure to ABC was found. ABC was later supplanted by Jostle IV, which barraged the entire band, beginning on 30 June 1944. The ABC systems moved to No. 462 Squadron RAAF in March 1945.

In all my years of membership here, one of the best things I've ever been directed to is Murray Peden's book A Thousand Shall Fall, available here. Peden flew with 214, having also flown the Short Stirling on ops. If you ever want to get a better understanding of the Bomber War, start here. It really is one of the best accounts of that terrible time.

 

[rascal1]

214 Squadron (code "BU") operated the B-17 as a carrier for ABC ("Airborne Cigar") . This from Wikipedia:

In all my years of membership here, one of the best things I've ever been directed to is Murray Peden's book A Thousand Shall Fall, available here. Peden flew with 214, having also flown the Short Stirling on ops. If you ever want to get a better understanding of the Bomber War, start here. It really is one of the best accounts of that terrible time.

Big balls on those boys. Much respect.,

 

[XRCD011]

Awesome look on the B-17 paint work.^^

 

[fingers284]

Very true, mate. When they were in service, England sent them out every night safe in the knowledge many of them weren't coming back. Meanwhile,in mainland Europe, people would hear them go over and think "Please, God, not here, not tonight." There are objects of profound sadness, harbingers of terrible things for everyone involved. They evoke substantial strong emotions in me.

Not sure if Harris was a visionary or a war criminal. There's evidence supporting both viewpoints. Not gonna argue that here. But I see a Lanc (or a Halifax or a Wellington) and they kinda grab me. The thought of seeing a number of them in flight puts a lump in my throat. Maybe that's a small appreciation for what folks felt back in the day.

Good post DAD. I did get the chance to see a Lanc. in flight one time, I was building a sub-division in west Calgary 15 or so yrs ago when one flew out heading west to BC interior someplace. It wasnt very high, maybe 2500 ft or so and I had a whole fleet of heavy equipment working around me and I could hear those big engines & props roaring as plain as day....can only imagine a hundred or more at a time.

 

[Grizzly Adams]

My uncle was a bomber pilot in WW2, he loved the Lancasters not so much the others. Flew over 30 missions with 2 nervous landings, one with a 500lber stuck in the bombay doors and one with no hydrolics causing him to belly land . Both times away from the main runway so as not to mess them up. Have his log book and uniform.

My dad spent the last part of the war taking pot shots at your uncle. Must have been good at it because he was awarded one of these.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naval_Artillery_War_Badge

Grizz

 

[grelmar]

Imagine this.

Pitch black, -40C, you're in thick, restrictive leather and woolies. Can't get out the nose hatch. Plane is in a 45% bank to port, spiraling down to Holland. Starboard inner tank is on fire. Skipper said "GO" so you're trying to climb over that spar to get to the door on the rear starboard side. You were "coned" thirty seconds before so your night vision is pooched. Not much time to get out, even less if you hope to have your chute deploy properly.

I wonder how many of the 51,000+ young men we lost had that as their last experience on Earth. Brings a tear to my eye to think of it. What a hell of a thing to ask men to do.

Lots of the time men got stuck inside the fuselage, trapped by the g-forces of a spinning aircraft, they would just have to wait to die, knowing it was coming. How long does it take to spin down from 30,000 ft? That'd suck.

Assuming slightly less than terminal velocity at 100 mph, 3.34 minutes. Less if it's in a power dive. Not much time to do anything at all.

3 1/2 minutes is loads of time to contemplate your end.

With luck, you'd black out from the G's quickly.

There was a recording floating around a while ago, out-takes of the radio audio recorded on a propaganda flight bombing run. Once the searchlights and flak honed in on the formation, the radio recording was mostly a mess of overlapping screams and young men pleading for their mothers.

I couldn't listen to it, and deliberately lost the link.

Back to pics:

Need an LZ, but the jungles of Vietnam a bit too thick to land your Huey? We have a solution for that, just kick a BLU-82 "Daisy Cutter" out the back of a C-130, and create an instant clearing.

 

[Dark Alley Dan]

There was a recording floating around a while ago, out-takes of the radio audio recorded on a propaganda flight bombing run. Once the searchlights and flak honed in on the formation, the radio recording was mostly a mess of overlapping screams and young men pleading for their mothers.

I couldn't listen to it, and deliberately lost the link.

Jesus, neither could I. I'll take your post as a warning. Made the mistake of picking up an audiobook version of Len Deighton's Bomber, which includes a section where a Lanc is shot down and the pilot over the intercom tells the crew "I'm sorry, boys - bad show, bad show..." That's stuck with me for years now. It's fiction, but feels like the truth. The sense of regret, of having let his crew down by not being sharp enough, or lucky enough, some dark night far from home. Months of training, an expensive aircraft under your command, the lives of six friends in your care, and somehow it all goes wrong. Now you'll likely die, and you get to feel guilty about it the whole time you're dying.

The same section puts us in the mind of a crew member who jumps without a chute. We're allowed to know his thoughts in the minutes it takes for him to reach the ground. The narrative ceases mid-thought. Absolutely gutting stuff. Can't say as I recommend it, but it's probably an important thing to have in any complete library on the topic of Bomber Command.

My Grandpa missed that experience, but not by much. He was in his thirties, married, and my Mom already present when he took the milk into town and came back with a surprise for my very Irish Grandma - "I've signed up with the Air Force" he said. She was some pissed, and stayed that way for an appropriately Irish length of time.

Grandpa went into training. His records indicate he was clever enough, but not sufficiently clever to be a Pilot, Navigator, or Bomb Aimer. He would make "a passable Air Gunner" it was determined, and that was how it was looking until someone determined that a) he was colour blind, and b) had a kid. His training was shifted to ground duties.

Being the Air Force, they took this colour blind man and made him an electrician. Naturally.

Grandpa spent several years in England, at Topcliffe with 1659 HCU. Never talked about it much, and we lost him to cancer when I was eight years old. I wish to hell I could have had a few years more to have him walk me through what he'd experienced. Hope to get to Topcliffe someday. Still an airfield, apparently.

 

[grelmar]

Jesus, neither could I. I'll take your post as a warning. Made the mistake of picking up an audiobook version of Len Deighton's Bomber, which includes a section where a Lanc is shot down and the pilot over the intercom tells the crew "I'm sorry, boys - bad show, bad show..." That's stuck with me for years now. It's fiction, but feels like the truth. The sense of regret, of having let his crew down by not being sharp enough, or lucky enough, some dark night far from home. Months of training, an expensive aircraft under your command, the lives of six friends in your care, and somehow it all goes wrong. Now you'll likely die, and you get to feel guilty about it the whole time you're dying.

The same section puts us in the mind of a crew member who jumps without a chute. We're allowed to know his thoughts in the minutes it takes for him to reach the ground. The narrative ceases mid-thought. Absolutely gutting stuff. Can't say as I recommend it, but it's probably an important thing to have in any complete library on the topic of Bomber Command.

My Grandpa missed that experience, but not by much. He was in his thirties, married, and my Mom already present when he took the milk into town and came back with a surprise for my very Irish Grandma - "I've signed up with the Air Force" he said. She was some pissed, and stayed that way for an appropriately Irish length of time.

Grandpa went into training. His records indicate he was clever enough, but not sufficiently clever to be a Pilot, Navigator, or Bomb Aimer. He would make "a passable Air Gunner" it was determined, and that was how it was looking until someone determined that a) he was colour blind, and b) had a kid. His training was shifted to ground duties.

Being the Air Force, they took this colour blind man and made him an electrician. Naturally.

Grandpa spent several years in England, at Topcliffe with 1659 HCU. Never talked about it much, and we lost him to cancer when I was eight years old. I wish to hell I could have had a few years more to have him walk me through what he'd experienced. Hope to get to Topcliffe someday. Still an airfield, apparently.

I've mentioned it before, but my Grampa ended up as a welder for the RCAF. Spent the war in North Ontario bopping between the international training aerodromes, working on the crash crews, cutting kids (or what was left) out of their trainers when they failed their solos. Only bits and pieces of that ever came up in conversation, when he was that special kind of drunk. Decent enough fella, worked hard to put food on the table for his family, never raised a hand to his wife or my dad, drank himself to sleep every night until cancer took him in his late 70's.

I wonder how all the bomber command radio gals fared after the war, listening in for hours on end and pushing markers across the map tables.

 

[Dark Alley Dan]

One of the great blessings of my life is never knowing an experience like that. God bless your Grandpa, Grelmar. I hope he's at peace.

Back from Ops, 1942:

That kid isn't thirty yet.